I don't really remember just what month we were sent to Benning, but we were there over a year on standby duty. I was a CWO1 at the time and had been assigned to the transfer of prisoners between Army Bases and Ft. Leavenworth. I returned to Ft. Campbell, after a transfer of two prisoners and was ordered to Ft, Benning GA.
Upon arriving, we were briefed as to what had been going on and what was to be expected of us. The Dept. of the Army wanted a group of unbiased personnel to take charge of the recent Marshall Law Order. J Egar Hover, Head of the FBI had declared Marshall Law after a rash of crimes had taken place within the city of Phenix Alabama. It was thought that several personnel from Ft. Benning were involved, which included several Civilian's, Officers and enlisted personnel. All areas of Phenix City was off limits to all Military Personnel except for Special assigned personnel assigned to this special duty. We were housed in an area off Base, away from regular Military Personnel stationed at Benning.
I was assigned to a Combat Airborne Engineer group. The Dept of Army wanted experienced heavy duty equipment operators in had in case they were needed. Several barricades were developed in and around the city some were earthen and some were of construction material.
I was stationed in the center of the 14th. Street Bridge armed with a Fifty caliber machine gun, fully loaded with live ammo. Tanks, 4X6s, troop carriers plus artillery were displaced in and about the entire City. You could not enter or leave.

This unruliness had been going on for many years. Several Military personnel had been murdered over the years, the FBI planted several of their agents within the City and all activity was reported to J Egar Hover. When he had enough information he went to the President of the U.S.A. and obtained permission from him to declare Marshall Law.
It was reported that the following activities were taking place: Prostitution (white slavery act of using 14 year old Girls to perform acts of prostitution) Gambling, Loan Sharking, Murder, Robbing lone Military personnel sometimes leading to their deaths. Unlawful sale's of Alcohol and Drugs, Receiving Stolen Merchandise and, it went on and on and on.
The first few weeks were very rough as everyone wanted to go against the Declared Marshall Law. There were several skirmishes in and around the City. Several warning shots were fired to control unruly crowds. There were reports of civilians firing on troops deployed within the City and also reports of civilians being wounded and or injured. The area's where I was assigned didn't have much trouble.
But I did fire several warning shots into the angry crowd of civilians, after we had been fired on by the crowd. We had been subjected to rock throwing earlier and it escalated into a real frenzy, when we were fired on I returned fire into the crowd, not caring if I hit someone or not.
After the second week of Marshall Law and with the rounding up of several suspected ringleaders and the arrest of several hundred others, the City became very quiet. Small incidents would pop up around Town from time to time and after several weeks that even became a thing of the past.
John W Taylor

Another visit was to introduce me to proper manners at the club. While seated at one of the tables I noticed a scuffle at a table one of the "hostesses" slammed a fifth bottle over a troopers head he went down and I can still see him on the floor reaching up to the table trying to recover. The bouncer came over and threw HIM out.

My room mate was as tough as they come he would always put on some boxing gloves and want to "spar" I served as his punching bag since my science of the art was not as accomplished as his.
One morning I woke up to see his head all wrapped up like a mummy. I asked "what the hell happened?" He said he went into town; it was the end of the month before pay day. He had gone into an off limits place and when he placed a twenty to pay the bartender zapped him with a black jack. It split his head open. He turned to look at the guy and he said the look on the bartenders face was of amazement that he was still standing.
He then proceeded to punch the guy out. He said the only thing he could figure was the bartender wanted the $20. Our captain was organizing a "go into town and tear the place up party" when headquarters got wind of it and stopped it.

Another "classy place" was Ma Beechies. You might not get hurt jumping from a plane but at Ma Beechies you could get hurt without too much effort. The place was complete with "girls" slots, bar and of course a back room. I remember one of the gals seated at the bar in shorts , legs crossed and on her thigh a tattoo of a cherry and underneath it said " Here's mine where's yours?"     The place was class all around.

I was standing on the sidewalk in Columbus were a Black fellow was double parked a police car came along side him the cop leaned out the window and said" move along or I'll club you.   "This was my introduction to the Columbus Police."

There was just an excitement about the place, every thing was wide open, drinks over the bar, gambling, stage shows and anything else you wanted, something you  didn't see in the south . It was just exciting  to go to a bar and buy a drink and see a floor show.

They  had some nice clubs and some were rough where anything went. You had to decide which one you wanted,  if you choose the wrong one and did the wrong things when you were there you could get into serious trouble. Because there were joints where you were
just another mark and they had no feelings for you in anyway except for your money, the guys that went to these places were the ones that usually got into trouble.

It has been so long since I was there I really don't remember most of the names, but most of them were off limits  to military personnel, of course there was just good advertisement for them, but they were off limits for good reasons and a lot of GI's just couldn't understand the reason.

One of my favorite places was Beachies Howards, when you first went into the place the bar was on the right,  tables to the left,  and the stage in the middle of the tables. They had some good shows, of course they had a game room it was in  the back.

Ma Beachie always sat to the right at the end of the bar and watched everything that
went on and knew just what to do when trouble started, she got it stopped before it got out of hand. It was probably my favorite place, mostly because I went with a dancer who worked there and knew all the bouncers and they kind of kept an eye out for me and I guess that kept me out of trouble.

If you wanted trouble you could find it anywhere in Phenix City and most all the locals just loved to bust heads at the drop of a hat.  It was nothing for about half  the GI's to get rolled on the first of the month and to win any money at the tables was impossible. They made their on dice and cards in fact they made all of their gambling equipment to make sure they won all the money, if they didn't win it they would take it. It was mostly  the ones that tried to gamble that really got into trouble.

If you went over there just for drinks and fun you usually didn't have any trouble, unless you got into a fight with another GI over a girl, and that happened quite often.

Most people went across the 14th street bridge that was where the clubs started and ran past the city limits the farther you went out the worse they were, that was where
most of the cat houses were.  I'm sure you all know what a cat house is,  if you don't you must have been in another branch of service.

Every bar in the city had some form of gambling most of the smaller bars only had slot machines and occasionally you could win a few dollars on them if you hit it and quit, if
you stood in front of it long enough it would get your money too,

Phenix City ran wide open from the early forties until late 1953 or early 1954. That's when Albert Patterson was shot because he changed sides and tried to clean up the city, anyway he got enough publicity from it to get elected Attorney General of the State of Alabama .
The thugs just couldn't stand it so they shot him.

The Governor of Alabama sent in the National and closed the place up tight. The Sheriff, the Solicitor and one of the big name racketeers was convicted of his murder.

Albert Patterson  son was elected the new Attorney General,   thus ending the saga of "Sin City"

Now it is like all small towns,  I went back there a few years ago and if you didn't know its history you could never believe it was as bad as it once was.

Just an add on, the 900 block of Broad St. used to jump pretty good and any troopers that were there should remember the "Bazaar" you couldn't get in it on payday night,  no gambling but lots of wine, women and song.

If anyone out there remembers this place, drop me an email .

The way out, for a GI, was to call the MPs and have the place raided, yourself and your friends arrested. The First SGT of the MP Company usually required a share of the winnings to be "donated" to the MP Company party fund or something like that...a good cause.

The one time this guy told me about, they actually had to run a decoy MP vehicle back in to Benning, which was followed by "locals". The actual GIs and their winnings "E & E'd" back to base in another MP Vehicle.

Great web sites...a pleasure to visit and rekindle memories.

We never went to Phenix in groups of less than six and we usually went to the Seven Up Club but once in a while we would go to Beachie Howard's.  Those 'Bama boys thought they were pretty tough but you know it seemed like the only people they messed with were single GI's.  One night I got separated from my buddies for a minute, I think I stopped to chat with a little lady of the evening on the street while they went on into 7-Up.  As I started into the club a US Navy Sailor came slamming through the door cussing his head off; seems one of the local girls had cleaned out his pockets while he was trying to get her to clean his pipes and when he complained the bouncer explained the facts of life to the swabbie and gave him a couple of love taps just to put an explanation point on the instruction.  I heard the sailor say something about police while he was headed out the door but we were there for a couple of hours and I never saw a cop.

Once in a while the local good ol' boys would line up on the bridge between Phenix City and Columbus and would grab an occasional drunk GI and toss him over the rail into the river, but they never messed with our group. Seems they had a bad experience with a group of Troopers and the locals wound up in the river with a few lumps and bumps and they learned not to mess with several Troopers in a group.  Remember that Ft. Benning was home
of the Infantry School and OCS at that time so there were plenty of Legs for the locals to mess with.